we need not imagine a gap in the text, but may explain the construction as in Gen 3:22-23, by supposing that the writer hastened on to describe the carrying out of what was said, without stopping to set down the words themselves. This supposition is preferable to the former, since it is psychologically most improbable that Cain should have related a warning to his brother which produced so little impression upon his own mind. In the field “ Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.” Thus the sin of Adam had grown into fratricide in his son. The writer intentionally repeats again and again the words “ his brother,” to bring clearly out the horror of the sin. Cain was the first man who let sin reign in him; he was “of the wicked one” (1Jo 3:12). In him the seed of the woman had already become the seed of the serpent; and in his deed the real nature of the wicked one, as “a murderer from the beginning,” had come openly to light: so that already there had sprung up that contrast of two distinct seeds within the human race, which runs through the entire history of humanity.
verses 9-10
Defiance grows with sin, and punishment keeps pace with guilt. Adam and Eve fear before God, and acknowledge their sin; Cain boldly denies it, and in reply to the question, “ Where is Abel thy brother?” declares, “ I know not, am I my brother's keeper?” God therefore charges him with his crime: “ What hast thou done! voice of thy brother's blood crying to Me from the earth.” The verb “ crying” refers to the “ blood,” since this is the principal word, and the voice merely expresses the adverbial idea of “aloud,” or “ listen” ( Ewald, §317 d). דּמים (drops of blood) is sometimes used to denote natural hemorrhage (Lev 12:4-5; Lev 20:18); but is chiefly applied to blood shed unnaturally, i.e., to murder. “Innocent blood has no voice, it may be, that is discernible by human ears, but it has one that reaches God, as the cry of a wicked deed demanding vengeance” ( Delitzsch). Murder is one of the sins that cry to heaven. “ Primum ostendit Deus se de factis hominum cognoscere utcunque nullus queratur vel accuset; deinde sibi magis charam esse homonum vitam quam ut sanguinem innoxium impune effundi sinat; tertio curam sibi piorum esse non solum quamdiu vivunt sed etiam post mortem” (Calvin). Abel was the first of the saints, whose blood is precious in the sight of God (Psa 116:15); and by virtue of his faith, he being dead yet speaketh through his blood
